Vail Daily letter: Liberal love affair

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Jack Van Ens' commentary of Jan. 27 is another example of his love affair with liberalism and the biased analysis it produces.

Van Ens says Republicans are "out of sync with what people believe about God and government." What people? All people? Some people? Liberal people?

If he means that these people believe that God is OK with aborting babies and with gay marriage, then perhaps the GOP is out of sync.

If he means that these people believe that bigger government is better government, that a government should not be required to be fiscally responsible, that a government should not be required to secure its borders, that a government can limit our constitutional rights, then perhaps the GOP only is out of sync with his people.

He next makes the outrageous claim that the GOP fell "out of sync with the national mood" when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter for the presidency.

What exactly did Mr. Van Ens think the national mood was? Was it a preference for high unemployment, high inflation and slow growth (stagflation), long gas lines and the national embarrassment that was the Iran hostage crisis?

Perhaps the national mood was best expressed by public opinion polls that rated Carter's popularity lower than Nixon's during Watergate.

Van Ens seems impressed that Carter installed solar panels on the White House to lessen dependence on fossil fuels only to have Reagan, friend of Big Oil, remove them. In the book, "In the President's Secret Service," a White House staffer referring to the solar panels said, "It would not generate enough hot water to run the dishwasher. It was a fiasco. The staff had to buy new equipment to keep the water hot. That blew any savings."

The bad news was that Carter wasted money installing solar panels. The good news was that he never lost $500 million of taxpayer money guaranteeing the debt of a bankrupt solar panel manufacturer (Solyndra).

Van Ens implies that Republicans are tone deaf and are usually "crafty, unreliable and dated."

Obama, on the other hand, "excels at reading political trends" and exhibits "good judgment."